OPINION: Talk of the Town

Clean fuel program shouldn’t enable factory farms

New Mexicans deserve and need a clean, sustainable energy future and — especially given all the chaos and uncertainty at the federal level — any state programs intended to help get us to that cleaner future must be as effective as possible. This certainly holds true for the Clean Transportation Fuel Program, which is currently being developed by the New Mexico Environment Department. As it does so, we must ensure that the program does not incentivize factory farming and enrich polluters across the state.

We’ve already seen how programs like this (most infamously, California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard) can allow massive, corporate factory farms to profit off a program intended to be a climate solution, and ultimately has led to a nationwide bonanza for factory farms to profit off pollution. We must ensure that the same does not happen in New Mexico.

We have the perfect opportunity during the upcoming public comment period to make our voices heard that the biogas loophole in the clean fuel program must be closed before it can incentivize major polluters that put our state’s air and water at even more risk. At the end of the day, whatever program NMED develops, it should not enrich polluting factory farms.

Emily Tucker

Albuquerque

US authoritarianism should alarm all of our citizens

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., is seized, taken to the ground and handcuffed as though he were a common criminal for daring to question the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Federal troops are deployed to put down immigration detention and deportation protests in Los Angeles. An extravagant military parade is staged not in North Korea but in D.C. A former Democratic lawmaker and her husband are assassinated by a right-wing conspiracy theorist.

These extremely disturbing developments confirm that the Trump administration has turned our nation into a police state. Democratic lawmakers express their outrage, but nothing gets done. As for the Republicans, they lie on their own or parrot those of the reality-challenged president.

No matter one’s party affiliation or ideology, the unbridled authoritarianism on display should alarm all citizens. Speaking out and voting are more important now than ever.

Janet Goldstein

Socorro

Commonly used phrases can often be perplexing

Why did the article concerning the stabbing incident on the Rail Runner say the victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Where was he rightfully supposed to be at that time. If I’m supposed to meet someone at Golden Corral at 8 p.m. and mistakenly go to Golden Pride at 8 a.m., then I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had I gone to Golden Corral at 8 p.m. and happened to be stabbed by a deranged person for no reason, it would not change the fact that I was in the right place at the right time. The same goes for if something wonderful happened to me when I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as I can remember, everything that ever happened to me, good or bad, happened to me when I was where it happened to me at the time it happened to me.

While I’m at it, I would also like to comment on the frequent use of the phrase “too little, too late” when something is actually just too late. For example, if you close and lock the barn door to keep your horse from running off, you’re not doing too little. It’s no use doing so after the horse has already run away because it’s simply too late; that’s all.

Ken Terry

Albuquerque